I imagine that in the MP scene a Russia into tundra pantheon -> work ethic is one of the strongest openers possible. I guess Mali is the only other civ that accumulates faith earlier and faster? But they want to take desert folklore, do they really want to take dance of the aurora as a deny pick?
my guess is the way it works out is that you either just ban Russia as an S-tier civ from the outset, or you have to use an equally OP non-faith strat to negate their advantage (Hungary and Nubia come to mind).
From a single player perspective, I think it really just boils down to Russia being too good. Work ethic wouldn't bother me in any other situation - if you aren't playing Russia, game-planning around getting one of the OP pantheons and getting a religion is itself a risky enough proposition at higher difficulty levels that you should be rewarded if the gamble pays off. After all, the AI usually snags all of the adjacency pantheons themselves. And Mali, the only other civ that gets an early bonus to faith production, has a crippling malus that makes them a fun challenge.
But with Russia, you can guarantee you get the pantheon you want (which is the tundra one because of your start bias and civ bonuses), and then guarantee you get the religion you want (AI doesn't seem to go for work ethic much, so that usually isn't a challenge). On top of all that, because Lavra's are so cheap, you have a pretty automatic game-winning mid-game strat - just go wide and first-build lavras. Once those are up a work-ethic lavra city with 20 shields is going to be able to build basically anything you want in a reasonable amount of time. On top of that, you are claiming land that isn't desirable for anyone else. And on top of that, you are basically winning the faith-economy game (which the AI isn't capable of winning in the first place).
